Wednesday, September 24, 2008

The other day, I made mushroom barley soup because it felt autumny (or wintery, but we're not there yet...hold off on those freaking Christmas items, please). I got the recipe from How to Cook Everything. I so need to get around to buying this book.

I made a few changes to the recipe -- some intentionally, others not. I'm not a fan of onions, so I skipped those. I added garlic. I forgot to even buy parsnip, so, um, oops. I added celery. Safeway didn't have dried porcini mushrooms, so I used what they had. For the fresh mushrooms, I used what Safeway had on sale. I used parsley and oregano. I forgot to add salt and pepper (a common omission on my part). Cardo said that the soup definitely needed the spices.

So, today, after having forgotten both my sweater and my purse at home (must get more sleep...or new brain), I couldn't buy anything out to eat. Thanks be for that, because I need to eat what's in my refrigerator. I walked in and oiled, salted and peppered some asparagus and shoved that into the oven (on a cookie sheet). Then, I ladled some soup into a saucepan and started heating it up. I made the huge mistake of seasoning my soup without first tasting it, though (why?) and I ended up adding enough pepper to burn my lips, tongue and throat.

The asparagus was freaking great. The soup was very earthy (that's what everyone I've heard says about mushrooms). I think I'd rather have it as dinner than as lunch. The broth is really good, the mushroom flavor permeating the soup water. I'll try this again, probably tomorrow night, with tons less pepper.